(All Hazbin Hotel/Helluva Boss characters are copyrighted by Vivienne Medrano. All original characters are by me)
Tales of the Sigh
Tale II: The Extra Grand
by Adonisus
Skeezy motels were always nasty and dirty. In Hell, they were even skeezier.
The room was filled with the stench of old tobacco smoke and stale beer. The wallpaper was old and yellowing, even peeling off from the walls in places and exposing the cheap, cracked siding underneath it. The fact that the insulation wasn't poking its head through the cracks was a miracle in and of itself.
But for Angel Dust's purposes, it was perfectly suitable.
The spider-demon took a puff on his cigarette, exhaling a cloud of pink smoke through his fuzzy lips. His left arm was crooked behind his head, pressing into the pillow beneath him. His lower pair of arms were lying lazily near his legs, with one hand scratching his thigh.
The other hand was propped on top of his client.
He looked down at the head bobbing up and down on his groin.
"Hey girly. Not for nothin' but...you're barkin' up the wrong tree down there."
He was answered by rather enthusiastic slurping, as the white-haired Imp looked up at him with her large yellow eyes. His candy-striped member fell out of her mouth. Much like him, she was completely unclothed and covered in sweat.
"I'm not doing it for you.", she answered, rubbing her red cheek on his shaft. "I'm getting my money's worth".
"Just sayin'...", he replied after another puff. "I got better ways of servicin' dames like yourself, and it takes a bit more than that to get me hard for girls."
She answered him by climbing up his legs and reaching underneath him, grabbing his curvy and fuzzy backside.
"Oh, I'm sure…" she said. Her fingers dug in and kneaded the white-furred cheeks in her hands. For someone who looked like a walking beanpole, Angel Dust was actually quite curvaceous and meaty underneath his clothes.
His lower arms reached up and groped at her small bust. Angel Dust's own proclivities were nowhere near the female side of Demonry, but he certainly didn't lack for enthusiasm. Female clients seemed to be almost as common as male clients for him, as his sex appeal seemed to be nigh universal.
Considering the mission, getting to hire this gorgeous weirdo for the evening was just a plus.
Speaking of which…
"You still there with me, Jude?", she whispered under her breath.
Why do you insist on putting me in rubbish bins?
"Why are you just complaining about it now?", she answered back. "You've been in worse."
Because I was just covered in a bunch of condoms.
"And?"
A bunch of used condoms.
"Is it blocking your view?"
...No.
"Then deal with it. And keep your eye on the target.", she replied.
She heard a light sigh.
Affirmative.
Her 'date' shifted roughly underneath her.
"Ya say somethin' ?", he asked.
"Heh...naw, babe." She crawled up the spider-demon's stomach until she reached his chest. She licked her black-lacquered lips as she rubbed her hands down his torso muscles. She could feel his perspiration underneath the fur.
"Ya sure? Cuz I'm pretty sure that-"
She reached up and gripped the pink collar around his neck. She pulled him up to her face.
"Did I say you could speak, slut?", she rasped through her teeth.
The spider-demon's eyes grew wide.
"N-no ma'am!", he squawked back.
"That's what I thought…" she said as she lowered him back onto the bed. She climbed further up to sit down on his famous chest floof. She leaned over and licked his neck and cheek.
"Careful, the room is bugged.", she whispered into his ear.
"Yeah, I know.", he whispered back. "I think tha' boss is tryin' to keep tabs on me."
"Does he usually make it so, well…."
She motioned up to the generic beach photograph hanging above the bed, with a large and very obvious microphone grill peeking out of from underneath the corner.
"….you know, obvious?"
Angel looked up at the picture. "Funny. Didn't notice that earlier..."
The target is getting restless.
"What's the status?", she answered back.
He's walking over to the payphone. Might want to act quickly.
"OK, you're definitely talkin' to someone else...", Angel whispered.
She grabbed his chin and kissed him, her pink tongue thrusting into his mouth. He tasted like cigarettes and peppermint.
"Listen, the guy I asked you about earlier…", she whispered.
"Ya mean Smoky?", he asked.
"Is that who matched the description?"
"Fat fuck with a shark head and a peg leg? Yeah, that's Smoky. Started working for Val last month."
She looked down at her hand for a moment in thought.
"Jude, describe the target."
Obese gentleman wearing a tank-top. He has the head of a shark and an artificial leg.
She turned back to Angel. "Yeah, that's him. You're sure he's not going anywhere?"
"Double sure. I specifically asked Val for him to act as muscle. Wasn't easy, though. Guy's apparently on thin ice with the boss."
"Good, good…"
She leaned up and grabbed a handful of his chest flood. She ditched the whispering and went back to her normal voice.
"How are we for time?"
The spider-demon looked over at the clock. "Ya still got a half hour."
"How's an extra grand for a full hour and your silence sound?"
He grinned that toothy, hungry grin of his, gold-tooth shiny as ever. "Like music, toots."
He's talking to someone on the phone. He's getting restless. Now or never.
She slid off of his chest and down to the floor. She wiped the sweat off of her forehead and stretched out her limbs.
"I'll be right back. I gotta step out for some air…"
She gave him a sly wink.
"Heh...yeah, sure ya are.", he answered.
"The fuck you mean I'm getting a downgrade?!"
Outside the 'Roach Hell Motel', warm winds and thorny tumbleweeds rolled through the desert. The cracked and pale concrete of the road was as dusty and neglected as the motel structure itself. This far out of the Pentagram, one could easily make the mistake of taking a wrong step off of Lucifer's kingdom and into the dangers of the Wasteland.
Another risk? No wi-fi. Hence why Smoky was currently screaming his finned head off into an old payphone.
"Mr. Valentino does not tolerate damage to his merchandise, Mr. Smoky." The voice on the other side of the conversation, unlike Smoky, was perfectly calm and mature. "Consider yourself fortunate that he does not take further measures."
"For an Imp?!", he roared back. "But the bitch attacked me! What the fuck else was I supposed to do? Lie down and take it like that four-armed fairy Angel Dust does?"
"You devoured her, Mr. Smoky. She wouldn't give in to your advances, so you swallowed her whole and then passed her through your system like a bucket of chum. You are lucky she was a recent hire, or else Mister Valentino would have given you more than a pay cut. Much, much more."
The shark-headed Sinner grunted in anger. "And I guess he has his secretary handle his dirty work."
"I'll ignore that comment because you are clearly angry. I would keep your comments to yourself. Especially about Mr. Angel Dust. The boss does not take slights about his favorite merchandise lightly."
"Is that why you stuck me with him for bodyguard duty?"
"No. Mr. Angel Dust specifically requested you. He did not explain why."
"...Huh." Smoky looked behind him at the motel. He heard a door open and close, but he saw no one walk out.
"This is your chance to get back into Mr. Valentino's good graces. Do not squander it."
The other line went dead.
Smoky slammed the receiver back onto the hook.
This was an absolute load of bullshit. They'd told him that running with Valentino's crew would have given him the kind of lifestyle he could have only dreamed of back on Earth, and yet here he was doing intern shit. That little Imp cunt had been the one who scratched his face and chest. Why the fuck was Valentino of all people so pissed off at seeing some Imp bitch getting messed up? She hadn't even been working for him that long!
Damn it….he could really used a drink right about now.
Well, at least he only had to deal with the drive back. Why the fuck did the client want to come all the way out to the ass-end of the Pentagram just for a quick poke?
He reached into his pocket and snatched out a pack of cigarettes. He banged it against his hand before fingering a loose smoke out of the box and lit it.
He pulled out his hellphone. As usual, no bars to be had this far out. But he still had other things to listen in on.
He swiped over to his apps, where he found the 'special' listening app he's installed on his phone the week before. It payed to invest in surveillance tech for this job, especially when you had potential blackmail to work with.
He put the phone to his ear…and heard some suspicious quiet.
That was certainly odd. Had they finished already?
He looked at his watch, checking the time….
...only to feel a sharp bite in his left tendon, knocking him to his knees.
"...Do not squander it." click
She heard the other line hang up.
She was crouched behind the trash can, eyeing the shark-head Sinner with her hellphone to her ear. There was a reason why these old payphones had become obsolete in Hell: they were so easy to listen in on.
"Did you get all of that, Jude?", she whispered under her breath.
Every bit of it. I believe he just confessed his actions.
"Lucius was right. Not only did this bastard murder her, he ate her and-"
I'm aware. No need to retread the entire story.
She flexed her fingers, feeling the joints in them pop.
"Ready to do this?"
Always.
"Then sic 'em"
As the shark-headed Sinner looked down at his watch, the trash can was jolted over to its side by a powerful internal force. Refuse and garbage spilled out onto the ground as a singular, vibrating object shot out of the can's body like a cannonball and flew headlong into the Sinner's left calf muscle, catching him by surprise and knocking him to the ground.
"Fuck!", he screamed in pain. His knuckles cracked against the pavement. He could already feel blood pouring out of his leg. Something sharp had bit all the way to the bone.
His head whipped around to look behind him. His sharp teeth were gritted in pure rage. His eyes were nearly bulging out of his gray head. In his calf was a curved dagger, roughly ten inches long (with about three inches of that firmly stuck in his leg). The hilt was ruby red, and glowing.
And a few feet away, slowly walking up to him was a grinning female Imp. Short, crimson-skinned, with bone-white hair in a long braid, and completely nude.
"Nice one, Jude."
I aim to please.
The Imp snapped her fingers. The knife began to vibrate as it roughly tore itself out of Smoky's leg and flew back into the air, twirling around and spreading blood all over the pavement.
Some of it splattered on her face. That just made her grin wider.
Smoky scrambled to his feet, trying to bite back the pain in his leg as he stood up. His face was red with bloody anger and his eyes were bulging out of his skull.
What came out of his mouth could not be recognized as human language.
"Frrrcccccccctttzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!"
"And a 'hello' to you to, Smoky.", the Imp replied.
He gripped his mangled leg as he tried to slowly make his way towards her. He looked her up and down.
"You….bitch." he gasped through gritted teeth. "You're the one who bought Angel Dust for the night..."
"So you do have more than two braincells.", she replied again. "Good to know. It won't be enough to save you."
She snapped her fingers again. The dagger stiffened in mid-levitation before making a bee line for Smoky's right knee. It struck his kneecap with a meaty thunk.
The Sinner yelled again, once more getting knocked to the ground. This wasn't just normal stabbing pain. This burned.
Burned like Blessed Metal.
He tried to yank the dagger out of his knee, but it wouldn't budge. The knife actually thrust further into his kneecap, shoving the full ten inches into his flesh before poking out of the back of his leg.
For the final time, the Imp snapped her fingers. The dagger tore a ragged hole through the Sinner's leg before flying into the air...and into the Imp's outstretched hand.
"You really fucked up, Smoky.", she said as she slowly made her way over to the mangled, pained Sinner.
Smoky, for his part, was still trying to crawl away from her, in one last desperate attempt to get away. He could barely form any words through the pain.
"Wha…what did I…"
The Imp sneered. "Oh, you want to know what you did?"
She stomped a hoof onto his mutilated tendon, bringing his hopeless escape to a bleeding, screaming halt.
"Well, you've clearly proven that you have enough intelligence to recognize pain, so you tell me. What did you do in the last week that could possibly result in this level of retribution?"
He didn't answer. He simply growled through his teeth as he attempted to lash out at her. One of his meaty fists tried to swipe at her torso.
Duck right.
She effortlessly dodged the blow, stepping away from his fist and landing on his mangled knee.
"No dice, Smoky? Fine, I'll tell you…"
She leapt over to his shoulder and rammed the dagger straight through, pinning him to the road. Blood began pulling around Smoky's neck.
"You hurt someone we care about. Someone we care about a lot..."
She stomped a hoof onto his enormous neck, choking his pained wales to pitiful hisses.
"You remember her. You were just talking about her with your boss's wingman. Thought you probably didn't know her name..."
His eyes, bloodshot at they were, seemed to finally express a bit of recognition.
"Oh yes. You remember. Her name was Murly, did you know that? Probably not, since 'Imps are expendable', right?
The muscles in his neck visibly stiffened. The veins poked out like writhing worms.
"Remember how you tried to put your hands on her?"
The eyes began to blanch. One of them began to twitch.
"Do you remember how she managed to successfully fight you off? How she so terribly hurt your ego?"
The dagger in his shoulder began to vibrate again. The burning pain radiated from his shoulder to the rest of his body. He wanted to scream, to plead for mercy, but the force on his trachea wouldn't allow him.
"...So terribly that you fucking ate her? Though your boss's man did get a detail wrong, didn't he? Because you didn't just swallow her whole..."
His head began whipping around violently in terror.
"...You ate her in chunks. You bit piece after piece out of her until she was in your gullet. And then…well, you know the rest."
She sat down and parked herself on his neck. She leaned over and stared deep into his terrified eyes.
"You're lucky that things work differently down here than they do where you come from. She'll recover...somewhat."
She reached over and grabbed the dagger's hilt, still firmly stuck in the ground and Smoky's shoulder.
"She has a sister, you know. A sister that works with us."
She slowly pulled the dagger out of the ground, tearing a ragged hole in the insertion point.
"A sister that came to my boss crying about what you did to her. We don't like it when piss-ants like you push Imps around."
She yanked the dagger free of the wound and held it to Smoky's jugular.
"You abused your last Imp, Smoky."
His terrified eyes watched as the eye on the hilt began to open up.
Open up and glow.
She leaned over, just far enough to whisper in his ear.
"The Imp Liberation Front sends its regards."
It was the last thing he would ever hear, in life...or in death.
"Did ya do it?"
Angel was just about to doze off when he heard the door open, with his 'date' nonchalantly entering the room. She quietly shut the door and leaned against it, exhaling like a beached whale.
For someone who had just followed through on an assassination, she was shockingly clean of any blood.
She looked over at Angel, wiping sweat from her brow.
"Yeah, it's done."
"Fan-fucking-tastic…"
Angel reached over to the nightstand and grabbed another cigarette. He rolled over onto his stomach as he lit it, clearly happy to have Smoky out of the picture.
"That guy was a fuckin' creep...you know about what he did to Murly, right?"
She climbed into the bed, making her way to the headboard behind Angel's head.
"Yeah, I'd heard. We Imps have to stick together, you know."
She reached up to the picture and yanked the microphone bug out of the picture's frame.
"So...we square?"
She bounced back down onto the bed.
"Pretty much. You sure your boss won't ask questions?"
Angel snorted. "He barely cares. I'll just tell him the dipshit got knifed by a drifter or somethin'..."
"Good to know. Now then…"
She reached into the nightstand and pulled out her hellphone.
"I promised you an extra grand, so…"
A flowery ding was heard from underneath the covers. Angel reached down to grab his own hellphone, only to see the lit screen showing his bank account.
"Whoa...you weren't kiddin'…"
She crawled down the mattress.
"Well, ya got another hour babe. Ya wanna sit on my face or som-WOAH!"
His head whipped around to find the Imp, face first in his backside.
"No need", she replied.
-FIN-